Must be fun to watch, though. Part of what me and James do is one of us has a wooden knife and attack and the other evades, which is hard.. But it gets quite funny when one or the other starts to get tired So would like to watch Chris Crudelli trying to avoid the sword until he got knackered..

Though for those who dislike him, you must feel some satisfaction when he gets his head crushed by the bamboo Kinda funny if you're sick that way lol

Also had to laugh at how eager he was (Chris) to feel that bloke who ingested his testicles. I mean, not to sound childish, but yknow, the guy goes "would you like to feel?" and Chris goes "Yeah, alright" I just find that funny. But that's irrelevant *Coughs*.... pardon the pun

Those clips aren't all the ninjitsu covered in the series though, I Don't think, he revists Hatsumi, or at least, they filmed more and put it in another episode.

Yeah they did that with a lot of them. Spread them out over the series so it's hard to find the bits you want. What country was that police force in where it shows them training in the dojo, the proper hard ones?

darkphoton1 wrote:
personally i would prefere a light bushido in a fight over a long heavy katana.

Ah, but if you were on horseback and your enemy was on foot, it's easier to reach with a longer katana. I think that's the purpose of them.

i said light bushido because whilst i was writing this i was looking at pictures of the bushido, what i actually meant is a light wakisashi

I was just explaining why I think such long swords exist. Sorry if I misunderstood you. I believe waki's were for use in enclosed spaces. The japs had low ceilings and wotnot so you couldn't swing a kat indoors very easily. If confronted with a katana i'd personally want a katana, but I hope to god I'm never in that situation lol.

The other purpose for a wakizashi would be to commit seppuku.
Also some samurai trained to use both swords together, Miyamoto Musashi the legendary swordsman being just one famous one who used both together.

Also a little known fact is that some Japanese merchants were allowed to carry Wakizashi as a "badge" of their success in business or office, But what they use to do is use the saya from a katana and have the wakizashi in that.

This gave the appearance that they were actually samurai, while enabling them to avoid prosecution (or rather execution), for it was only samurai that were allowed to carry katana.

When facing someone with a Katana, it should be noted that the "policemen" of that time in feudal japan were armed with either a Jutte,

(the jutte probably influenced the creation of the Sai).

Also a long pole ( sodegarami) that had spikes on the end that would tangle and intentionally twist the flowing kimonos, intentionally binding the subject with their own robes.

So even against a Katana the police of feudal japan were far from defenceless.

the wakizashi i think was always with a samurai (even when a samurai slept it would be under his pillow) and it was always carried with.
to buildings where katanas were not allowed, the samurai would carry a wakizashi anyway.

i think the tanto's main use was commiting Seppuku although a wakizashi was also used from time to time.